


Impact

by brocflowers



Category: Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: (not a point of heavy focus but yeah), Alistair voice Oh Boy! Sure Hope This Doesn't Awaken Anything In Me, Autistic Character, Dom/sub Undertones, F/M, Pre-Relationship, Sparring, Unresolved Sexual Tension, little bit of internalized sexual/religious shame. like for flavor.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-12
Updated: 2020-12-12
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:27:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28021632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brocflowers/pseuds/brocflowers
Summary: “Got you.”She sounds terribly proud of herself, and it surprises him enough that he laughs. Tries to, at least. It comes out as more of a wheeze.“Yes you did.”-Alistair and the Warden spar before dinner.
Relationships: Alistair/Brosca (Dragon Age), Alistair/Female Warden (Dragon Age)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 31





	Impact

**Author's Note:**

> Shout out to Guillermo Del Toro for putting that sparring scene in Pacrim. Changed my life.  
> Also, apologies if this is clunky. I'm trying to get back into writing after several years of Not Doing That, so I'm pretty rusty.  
> That aside, please enjoy.

It’s too fast for him to process, really. Brosca’s quick as lightning when she ducks down and pulls his knees out from under him, shoulder shoving hard into his hip to make sure it sticks. One moment he’s vertical and then he blinks and he’s falling, back hitting the ground hard enough to push all the air out of his lungs in an involuntary grunt.

Alistair struggles with his lungs for a moment, unable to think about anything but them and the startling expanse of blue above him. The sight of tree tops when he should be seeing trunks.

Brosca doesn’t give him any time to recover. He’s still lying there with his arms splayed out catching his breath when she straddles his ribs, her almost-full weight bearing down on him, pinning him to the dirt. He’s too dazed to do anything about it, hands limp and useless and open as she plants her palm in the center of his chest, the other hand clenched in a fist and moving to hover by his throat. A knife, he realizes, with far more delay than he’s comfortable with. She’s miming holding a knife to him.

Brosca moves her arm in a throat-slitting motion, clicking her tongue as she does so for emphasis. Alistair feels his stomach twist.

“Got you.”

She sounds terribly proud of herself, and it surprises him enough that he laughs. Tries to, at least. It comes out as more of a wheeze.

“Yes you did.”

Brosca grins down at him, and for once it’s more mouth than eyes, more teeth than lip. They’re crooked in the front, her canines over-sharp, tilted and slightly protruding. Snaggletoothed, Mother Adelaide used to say, though when _she_ said it she was always meaning to be cruel. Alistair doesn’t mean that, not at all. Hates that he even thought it.

He looks up at her, takes in the way her skin is flushed and sweat-slick, her body rising and falling in rhythm as she catches her breath, her eyes wild and dark, creasing at the corners. She looks good, he thinks, bright and unrestrained. Like she’s lit up from the inside. 

He inhales deeply at the thought, and the swell of his chest presses him up into the cage of her body, his sternum protesting vaguely as her palm presses down against it. He shifts, tries not to wince. It’s more uncomfortable than painful at the moment, but that could easily change. If she were to put any more of her weight into it, or turn her hand so the heel of her palm dug in, it would hurt a _lot._

A sense of unease washes over him as he realizes that he’s seen her do this before. Dozens of times, even. Enough to know that if this was real, and if she had a knife in her hand, those few short moments of stunned uselessness from him back there would have been more than enough for her to cut his throat and gut him open like a fish. Alistair follows the lines of muscle in her arms, takes note of the positioning of her hands. Even without a weapon she could hurt him. She has him at a disadvantage, flat on his back and vulnerable, it wouldn’t be hard.

Alistair sits with that for a moment. He supposes the thought should really scare him but it, well it just doesn’t. Not as much as it should. The hand at his throat, the one over his heart, the crush of her thighs around his ribs, they make him nervous, but only barely. It’s like some part of him knows for sure that he isn't in danger, that she’s not going to hurt him. Not for real. Not in any way that counts.

It’s an odd thing to feel certain of, he admits. Especially so when he considers how little he actually knows about her. She doesn’t talk much about her life in Orzammar, but her hesitance towards the subject combined with her obvious skill when it comes to cutting things open certainly alludes to something unsavory. She’s dangerous, certainly, and she’s admitted as much. But the way she talks, the way she acts… it’s hard for him to reconcile that danger with what he’s actually seen of her. As long as he’s known her she’s been careful with other people. Him, Leliana and Morrigan, strangers, anyone who isn’t actively attacking them. She’s always as polite as she’s capable of, always gentle. Thoughtful. She tries to do good things, she likes to help.

He trusts her, foolish as that might be. Apparently, he trusts her enough to let her pin him down and not try to throw her off, to put her hand to his throat and not squeeze. And that thought does scare him, he realizes, more than any thought of her killing him had.

Brosca’s eyebrows pull in, she tilts her head. The light hits her differently this way, casts different shadows, lights her eyes just enough that he can now see the differentiation between her irises and pupils. Her eyes are brown, dark brown, but most of the time you can barely tell. In all but the most specific of lighting, they look nearly black.

“Okay?”

It takes Alistair a moment to register that it’s a question. All the air is back in his lungs and yet somehow he still feels dizzy and unfocused, unable to perceive anything but the odd subtle details of her features. The geometric, knife-like tattoo over her eye, the s-shaped one beneath it. The scar under her left ear, faded and pale, the intersecting lines of her neck and collarbone. All of it close enough to touch, if he had the mind to do so. With just a thought, he could reach up and feel it.

Which he doesn’t of course. Want to, that is. He doesn’t want to touch her, and he isn’t going to. That would be weird. Inappropriate, even, and he isn’t really sure why his thoughts would go there in the first place, honestly. He just-

Brosca shifts forward and up onto her knees, taking the pressure off his chest. He blinks, sees her looking down at him with a worried expression, realizes he was supposed to respond.

“I’m fine.”

“Are you sure? I didn’t hurt you?”

“Not any more than you meant to, I think,” he says, “knocked the wind out of me for sure.”

“That’s all?”

The genuine concern in her voice certainly confirms his belief that she doesn’t mean him any harm. It also curls something soft and warm in his chest that he pushes down and ignores immediately, almost as if on instinct.

“Few bruises,” Her frown deepens, he talks faster, “I bruise easily though. I’m fine, Brosca, I promise.”

She looks at him very seriously for a few seconds. If it was anyone else he’d say it was a few seconds too long, but this is her, and he’s used to it by now. She doesn’t read faces or tone of voice as well or as quickly as most, and often has to pause before speaking to go over what was said, scrutinize the expressions made, pick at the conversation like a puzzle box in her head until it starts to make sense to her.

It made him uncomfortable at first. _Really_ uncomfortable. Alistair’s never been one for silences, he likes to fill them with his own words, drown them out with his voice. He did it a lot when they first met, and it made him terribly anxious because he knew he was talking too much and she wasn’t talking enough and she would seem confused and overwhelmed. Lost in all the noise he was making.

It’s more comfortable between the two of them now, and he doesn’t speak compulsively when she goes quiet. He knows she hears him, that she isn’t ignoring him, that she just needs a moment to think

Her body relaxes, finally, and she settles back in, though with considerably less weight than before. It’s strangely disappointing.

“Good,” she says, pressing her hands into the tops of her thighs, supporting herself with her own body instead of using his, “good, yeah that’s, good.”

A beat, two beats. She’s watching him, not making eye contact, as she so rarely does, but still looking into his face very intently. _Maker_ her eyes are dark. Like looking into deep water from a great height. Her gaze shifts a little from moment to moment, as if she’s trying to look at as much of him as possible. Alistair swallows thickly. If there’s something she’s waiting for, or something she’s trying to find, he doesn’t know what it is.

A stray strand of dark hair that’s managed its way out of her braid hangs loose by the side of her face. She doesn’t fix it, and the urge hits him to do it for her, to reach up and tuck it behind her ear. 

He dismisses the idea of actually doing so immediately, of course, but the thought of it stays, his fingers twitching with the imagined sensation of her skin against them. He does want to touch her, he realizes, he wants to touch her _badly_. So badly it almost hurts to think about. 

He thinks about it anyways. Imagines what it would be like to trace his thumb over the curve of her lips, to push up on his elbows and bury his face in her neck, kiss the thin white scar there, breathe in the sweat and soap lingering on her skin. 

She tilts her head to the side a little as she looks at him. Her mouth moves as if she’s about to say something, but nothing comes. Just silence, pregnant and dragging, her looking down at him with her lips parted slightly, expression thoughtful.

He wants to kiss her, he thinks, eyes drawn involuntarily to that empty space between her lips. Or rather, he wants her to kiss _him_ . Wants her to push him back down by the shoulders and hold him there while she does it. Mouth warm and wet and soft, hands strong and firm, unyielding. Her breath on his skin, the sharp press of her teeth against the underside of his jaw before careful lips and tongue follow the bite, soothe the sting. He wants to be pinned under her and at her mercy and wants it even more now that he’s seen how concerned she was when she thought she’d injured him. He trusts her not to hurt him, not to take it too far, and he _wants_ -

Brosca’s roaming gaze pauses, focusing somewhere on the lower half of his face, and it snaps him back into the here and now. He’s glad that there’s still a flush in his skin from all the exercise. The heat rising in his cheeks is almost unbearable as it is, and he thinks that if he knew she could see it the shame might eat him alive.

_Thank Andraste she can’t read your thoughts,_ he tells himself, numbing embarrassment tugging in his core, _imagine what she would think of you then._

“Something on my face?” he asks, voice far quieter and less steady than he meant for it to be.

Brosca blinks hard, looks startled for a moment. As if the sound of his voice had interrupted some deep thought.

“Oh. No, you look-” she stops herself, shakes her head, “-Sorry. It’s nothing.”

It doesn’t look like nothing. It might just be him reflecting his own squirming, ear-reddening discomfort onto her, but she seems embarrassed. Like he’s caught her doing something she wasn’t supposed to. Seen a moment that was meant to be private, found something she’d meant to hide.

“Sorry,” she repeats, “here let me- let me get off of you.”

_You don’t have to_ , he almost says, something very much like disappointment rushing through him as she rocks back onto her toes and then stands, shame following it as he realizes just how much he wants to reach up and pull her back down on him. Dig his fingers into the meat of her hips, feel those strong thighs press in around him again, her hands against his chest. Alistair shakes himself. He is a lecher, truly, and an irredeemable one at that. If the Maker had any mercy, he would reach out and smite Alistair where he lay.

She brushes her knees off once she’s on her feet, steps away and holds her hand out to him. He hesitates to take it at first, and when he finally does tries not to think about the way their hands slot together, the amount of strength he can feel her putting into pulling him up, the flex in her bicep as she does so. 

He stumbles as he rights himself, and she puts her hand on his other arm to help steady him. Her palm radiates heat enough that he can feel it through his shirt sleeve, and it makes him blush.

“Easy.”

Alistair looks down at her to respond and is instead distracted by the reminder of how much shorter than him she is. A moment ago it had felt like she was towering over him, huge and powerful, and now she’s tilting her head almost totally back so she can look at him, the top of her head just barely passing his collarbone. It’s...something. He feels something about it. Chooses not to examine _what._

“Thank you.”

Brosca hums in response and gives him a brief smile that’s nothing like her unrestrained victory grin from earlier. It’s more like her usual, lips closed, no teeth. Subtle, muted. He still likes it. Still wants to trace the corners of it with his fingertips, feel the shape of it against his skin.

He feels it when she steps away, the absence of her, the cool air between them. That he doesn’t like, so much.

“You should guard your knees more,” she says, “it’s obvious that you don’t think your opponent is going to aim low, and it leaves you vulnerable.”

“I’ll try to keep that in mind.”

She makes a face. It must have been his tone. He hadn’t meant for it to sound like a joke but it did nonetheless. He does that a lot, and it’s been a problem. It throws her off.

“I’m serious,” she tells him, gaze trained somewhere in the middle of his face, close enough to his eyes to make her point but far enough away that it doesn’t make her uncomfortable, “this is a huge blindspot for you, and it’s dangerous. Once the other person has you on the ground it’s over.”

Alistair thinks about her hand at his throat again, and this time it does scare him a little, because he can imagine what it would be like if she was anyone else. Someone who might even mean him real harm.

“I’ll keep it in mind,” he repeats, “seriously, I will. Thank you.”

The rigidness in her shoulders eases, and Alistair notes that he can never see tension in her until it’s gone. Something about the way she holds it seems natural for her, a weight she’s so used to carrying that her body has grown to hold it casually, like it’s not even a weight at all. Like her body has formed itself to be suited to the task.

"You wanna go again?" she asks, "there’s a few more things I could probably point out, if you want."

Alistair hesitates. The answer _should_ be yes. That was the point of this, after all. A couple of rounds of sparring before dinner to keep them both sharp, learn what they’re missing so it doesn’t kill them later. It’s nothing. Between the Templars and the Wardens he’s done it a hundred times with a hundred different people and it’s never been a problem. The answer should be yes, but when he thinks about her hands on him again, the scent of her skin, so close and so far away and-

-he knows he can’t go another round without embarrassing himself in some way. Frankly, he’s surprised he isn’t embarrassing himself right now. The fantasy of her tongue sliding against his was quite...vivid. The warm weight of her body still fresh in his mind.

“I’m starving, actually. Some other time?” 

Alistair thinks this might be the only time in his life he’s actually lied about being hungry. She looks disappointed for a moment, but snaps back so quickly that he thinks he might have imagined it.

“Any time,” she says.

The way she says it feels open-ended, almost, and there’s a conversation happening behind her eyes, some sort of internal debate. That strand of hair is hanging by her cheek still, dark and curling. He considers for a moment and then decides very firmly against doing anything about it. A more confident man might’ve been able to step forward and tuck it behind her ear and then play it off as nothing, a practical gesture more than an affectionate one. He knows he is not that man, and he keeps his hands to himself, thumbs tucked safely into his belt loops.

She gives him another crooked little smile, and he flashes one back.

“C’mon,” she says, gesturing towards camp, “let’s get you fed.”


End file.
